and assumed the honorific title al-Manṣūr. He appointed ministers of his own choosing, while al-Muʾayyad was left beside him a mere figure with no real power, for the caliph was inept and weak-willed.

Al-Manṣūr inflicted grievous losses on the Franks. Once a week he held a public session to which scholars came for debate; there he would honour them, treat them with deference, grant them stipends, and reward the poets. He captured a number of strongholds and filled al-Andalus with captives and booty, to the extent that the daughter of a leading Byzantine magnate—renowned for her beauty—was sold for twenty dinars.

Whenever he returned from fighting the enemy, he would shake the dust of battle from his clothes, gather it, and keep it. When death approached, he ordered that all the dust he had so collected be sprinkled over his shroud.

He led a little over fifty campaigns and died of dysentery—counted a martyr—on the far frontier near the town of Sālim in 393 AH.

At the outset of his career he served as chamberlain to al-Muʾayyad. He would enter the palace, then emerge and announce, “The Commander of the Faithful has ordered such-and-such and forbidden such-and-such,” and no one dared oppose or question him. He prevented the caliph from meeting the people; and from time to time he would mount him, place a hooded cloak upon him, dress his maidservants in identical cloaks so that he could not be distinguished among them, and take him for an outing in Madīnat al-Zahraʾ before returning to the palace in that same guise.

When the ḥājib Ibn Abī ʿĀmir died, his son—known as al-Muẓaffar, Abū Marwān ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad—succeeded him. He followed his father’s path, enjoyed extraordinary good fortune, and was famed for an excessive modesty that became proverbial, yet he was also numbered among the notable brave. During his days al-Andalus enjoyed prosperity, abundance, and honour until he died in Ṣafar, 399 AH.⦗1⦘